Franklin eBookMan 900

Despite the new RAP definition, the Franklin eBookMan offers little in the way of new technology, but puts a new slant on existing technology. Essentially it is an eBook reader with PDA capabilities bolted on, to justify the price point at which the eBookMan is offered.

With its large screen (87 per cent more pixels than a standard PDA) it is certainly more suited for viewing eBooks, although this obviously makes it a lot more bulky than a typical PDA such as a Palm. Build-wise it does feel a little flimsy, with the casing made entirely of plastic and emulating the see-through trend set by the Apple iMac.

Like on a traditional PDA, navigation is controlled through the use of a stylus. However, the stylus is slightly inaccessible, being located at the back of the unit. Again, it feels a little flimsy in the hand - there is a definite bend to the stylus when pressed onto the screen.

Like a traditional PDA the Franklin eBookMan includes an Address Book, Memo Book, Date Book, To Do List and Calculator. In addition, the eBookMan includes a Music Player for listening to MP3s, an Audiobook Player for listening to Audiobooks, and a Viewer program for displaying text and HTML documents.

Supplied with 8Mb of RAM, the immediate thought is that this is plenty of memory for the task of storing eBooks. However, it turns out that for the eBookMan to be any real use, the operating system needs to be downloaded and installed. This results in a rather limited 3Mb left for storing your eBooks. This is upgradeable via a MultiMediaCard (MMC) expansion slot, adding up to 64Mb of additional memory.

The reason for not including the operating system within the unit itself is unclear and adds time and effort to the whole setup process. This whole process is further hampered by the lack of instructions included in the box. A two-page Quick Start guide is provided, but for more detailed instructions you need to download a PDF manual from the Franklin website. Finding this manual is a little tricky, but its 155 pages can be downloaded to your PC.

The operating system itself is well presented and easy enough to use, although it does appear a little slow: there is a noticeable delay between tapping an icon and the application actually launching. However, once open, it all runs rather smoothly, with handwriting recognition software provided by Advanced Recognition Technologies.

Contact
Franklin: 0800 328 5618, www.franklin.com/ebookman/